The Olympus SP-700 is aimed
at a market segment that is looking for a simple-to-operate
camera, and is not inclined to waste time on technical details.
The SP-700 is a fully automatic camera which offers 26 capture
modes that cover the most varied conditions imaginable, making
it possible to shoot a multitude of different subjects without
having to worry about camera settings. And the results are
images captured with little effort that are correctly exposed,
and have superb colours.
For the more adventurous souls,
the SP-700 offers controls over sensitivity, white balance,
and even exposure compensation. All these settings are done
in the menu, and this highlights another advantage to having
a 3-inch monitor.
Not only does the size of the
monitor make it easier to frame shots — critical with
a camera that has no optical viewfinder and which requires
being held out in front of one’s face — but the
options in the menus are very legible.
Moreover, the fact that the camera offers the option of displaying
a composition easily by pressing the DISP/GUIDE button is
useful, as keeping things aligned correctly with cameras that
have to be held out to see the screen tends to be more difficult
than with those that have viewfinders.
Aperture: f4, shutter speed: 1/400 sec., 64 ISO.
The SP-700 provides a 3X zoom with
3 aspherical elements and its correction for distortion is quite
effective. Barrel distortion is invisible in shots captured
at normal distances using the wide angle, but a slight amount
of pincushion can become visible with telephoto shots that contain
verticals aligned close to the edges of the frame. Otherwise,
no chromatic aberration is noticeable throughout the focal range
of the zoom, but a softer focus can be observed with wide angle
shots.
Aperture: f4, shutter speed: 1/320 sec., 64 ISO.
Light metering is achieved using
a system that is referred to as “Auto” but which
performs in a manner similar to a centre-weighted pattern,
and which normally produces excellent results. Moreover, the
SP-700 is also equipped with a spot metering capability, which
can be very useful when the subject is strongly backlit.
While outdoor shots turn out well, exhibiting bright and
accurate colours, indoor shots with flash can be less predictable.
Then, the quality of the image is
affected by the quantity of ambient light, the source of the
light and the distance to the subject. The small flash of the
SP-700 has a limited range, and it is generally necessary to
set the sensitivity to Auto to get the most out of it and obtain
sufficiently bright images. The downside of letting the camera
increase the sensitivity is an increase in noise, showing as
“grain” in the image, although usually the images
print very well.
With the sensitivity set to
64 ISO, noise is undetectable in photos captured outdoors
and with good light. Images captured at 100 ISO are likewise
very good, noise being only detectable in shadow areas. At
200 and 400 ISO, noise becomes increasingly visible, and can
be found in areas that contain uniform colours as well as
in shadows. Nevertheless, 400 ISO is useable in bright daylight,
and can produce good photos while ensuring that the camera
has a sufficiently high shutter speed to freeze movement.
Aperture: f4, shutter speed: 1/400 sec., 64 ISO.
With this camera, Olympus has cut
down the image quality and compression options that are normally
offered on their cameras, and tied the level of compression
to the image size.
Even at the highest image quality,
SH Super High 6M, the images captured by the 6-megapixel CCD
are rarely more that 1.1 to 1.2 MB each, a compression ratio
that ranges from 14:1 to 18:1, a level that is considered
to be a medium compression. And with very detailed subjects,
some loss of detail is detectable when the image is seen at
100% on a monitor.
Still, it is worth noting that although the compression is
quite strong, the images show no major artefacts.
In summary, the SP-700 is an
interesting camera that is simple to use and which has the
advantage of a large monitor, giving the user an excellent
preview of the image about to be captured. Its 6-megapixel
images can be printed out to 7 x 9.4 inch (18 x 24 cm) size
at 300 dpi without any problem, and its automatic capabilities
should appeal to those that want a sleek, compact, and fuss-free
camera to carry along anytime and anywhere.
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